Oh boy! The game I've been looking forward(?) to the most! Two teams who I don't think I could ever say I like battling it out without having any kind of emotional investment! Who to root for!? I don't want to say I've thought about this a lot, but let's go into a little bit of criteria...
Bracket: First, and least interesting, my bracket. Statistically speaking, the Flames should have this one in the bag. And to be perfectly honest, I have you guys beating the aves in 5 (#Wildcard). I'm in a few brackets with work colleagues who act like they know shit, but really are more of the ESPN top 10 type people who maybe watch hockey during the playoffs. Most of their brackets are the number one seed making it to the finals and duking it out from there. Admittedly, flames you are the only ones that I have going for the number one seed, so unfortunately you guys need to make it til at least round two.
Team: now in previous seasons, this one has been a very tough one. I have always considered the avalanche and Wild rivalry to be pretty fucking sweet since our playoff series what is now many years ago [PING], but since then, the Wild and Flames have had some pretty epic faceoffs as well. Maybe so much not in the competitive since, but the volatile hate-each-other during the game sense. Holy shit, this year alone with Dumba having to fend off your pack of wolves, (well, maybe more dingos than anything) I've grown to hate your team and players pretty heavily. at the same time, I don't think it could ever rival the hatred I feel for Landeskog, Roy, or any batch of avalanche players. I mean Jesus Christ, there are days at work when I know that we are going to be playing the avalanche where I am spending my time looking up what each of their players have been up to lately, checking out their social media feeds, yada yada yada. THAT is a fucking passionate hatred. That's the shitt I love. Aves get this one.
Finally, and tbh, most important, Subreddit Fanbase: ever since our series with the aves, the rivalry on the main hockey sub and each of our players subreddits has been fucking relentless? Honestly I can't think of another word. We have had some incredibly brutal and disgusting GDTs, and each sub has some of the dankest, most disgusting memes about the other. Now on the other hand, in the last 2 years the flames' subreddit fanbase has been the most infuriating batches of pieces of shit I have ever had the discomfort of dealing with. And I'm not talking in a good way. After that fucking video of our boys touching the hands all of fucking sensitive Johnny (///////////#SticksOutForJohnny//////////), anytime I see a Flames comment in the main sub I instinctively want to downvote it, and that has NEVER been a thing for me. I mean in my time of getting into arguments with aves, Hawks, and even Jets fans (fuck you Dallas; you ain't worth mentioning you fucking desert hillbillies), I have never been so infuriated as having to read flames fans' comments about literally anything. Props on you for bringing that hate out in me. That's fucking impressive.
However, even with our rivalry and volatilism(sp?) against each other, and don't ever fucking quote me on this because I'll deny it and destroy this comment, I respect you, Aves fans, because our rivalry has always been fun. Going to a game to watch the Wild vs Aves is something I hope every single Wild fan is able to experience at some point. The fucking energy is better than drugs or beer. And this year has been extremely fun in the GDTs (despite a couple of fuckheads on both sides), where it's a nice balance of respect and good old-fashioned shit talk. I've grown to really love our "rivalry-relationship".
Summary: kick their fucking asses, aves. Bury them so far in the fucking ground that they can never recover or live this playoff series down. Fucking emotionally destroy them. Make them not be able to look their wives in the eye while they're having sex for the next decade because no matter where they look, they're always going to have fucking tears in their eyes and look like a wee bitch.